Chapterhouse: Dune is about Juries. Obviously the book is about more than that, but I think this concept is more important than one might think during their first reading of the novel. Frank Herbert is notorious for injecting his own philosophical and political beliefs into this series and Chapterhouse: Dune is no different. That is why I have chosen this final book as an opportunity to discuss politics and more specifically what Frank thinks does and does not work when creating a government. 

A jury is something you may already be familiar with. The most obvious case of using juries in government is as a way to balance power in courts. Like many parts of the world at this moment America currently functions as some sort of oligarchical democracy. In our current system low level courts are provided with a jury to mitigate the bias of a judge. To Frank Herbert juries are incredibly important and this is shown through the Bene Gesserit form of government that includes them. Darwi Odrade is the Mother Superior during the time of Frank’s final book: Chapterhouse: Dune. Despite the position of Mother Superior containing seemingly ultimate power, there are still methods the Sisterhood uses to maintain order and prevent tyranny. 

These methods are the juries and the watchdogs. Watch Dogs are actually a somewhat simple concept so I will explain them first. Essentially there is a branch within the sisterhood that maintains a spy network recording and watching all of the most important sisters including the mother superior. It is implied in the books that they may be watching all of the planet as they keep watch over Duncan and the other prominent prisoners on Chapterhouse. Next are the Sisterhood’s juries. These are mentioned by name multiple times as Odrade makes many tough decisions throughout the book. Essentially, although the Mother Superior’s orders are final, juries can intervene and decide if she is unfit to rule. The juries function as a different way to do government than what is represented in the many other powerful groups in the Dune series.